FC Dallas Salvages Draw on 4th of July

Published 7/5/2008 6:38:47 AM by staff from mlsnet

On Tuesday night, FC Dallas forward Abe Thompson bailed out his side with a two-goal performance, the winner in stoppage time, that propelled the Hoops to a 2-1 win against Miami FC in a third round US Open Cup match. Friday night, he did it once again against the Kansas City Wizards, scoring the game-tying goal in second-half stoppage time that netted FCD a 1-1 draw with the Wizards.

"I've scored three goals in two games now in stoppage time," Thompson said. "It's a matter of being patient. When my chances come, I need to put them away. In the first half, we played fairly lethargic and weren't moving the ball as well as we would have liked. In the second half, we got better and got some chances here and there. It was just a matter of not getting discouraged and keeping at it."

Thompson's goal was set up after a great cross from FCD rookie Eric Avila. It was Avila's first MLS assist and came after he entered the match at halftime for Andre Rocha.

"I wanted to get in there and start attacking by sending balls through," Avila said. "My assist came from the right side going through towards the left. I opened up wide and knew everyone was in the box, so as soon as I got it, I took a touch and saw Abe (Thompson) made that run and put it in the mixer. Luckily he put it in."

Head coach Schellas Hyndman realizes his side was fortunate at best to come away with a point. "This is a great result," he said. "Don't get me wrong. The exciting thing is that I think there is room for improvement. That's my objective as a coach. I'm happy as I can be with one point because I don't think we played so well. But I'm disappointed that we're not playing to our capability."

The Hoops went down to a first half goal to Scott Sealy, but had their share of opportunities over the match. "(I think we did steal a point), but I think it was a deserved point to be honest," defender Drew Moor said. "I think we had plenty of chances. We had to grind our way through it, but at the end of the day, it's a third successive goal in injury time. That's more of a sign for the team that scores than the team than gives it up because good teams can score in injury time and it's important to do that. Maybe we stole a point today but it was deserved."

However, the FCD head coach is a bit concerned by a team that he sees as often being confused on offense. "What we have is a little bit of confusion on what we're trying to do and our style," Hyndman said. "What is our style? We like to keep the ball in the middle of the field and don't have anybody running forward to change the point of attack. So, when we do knock the ball forward, it's to the strikers, who are marked. It's something that we tried to address last week is that after you play the ball, run forward. I think we find that in some of our players and some don't. It's hard to read each other. I don't think we're playing very well as a team."

The game was Dallas's fourth game in nine days and Hyndman is definitely seeing fatigue in many of his charges. "I saw it today in a few of the players," he said. "I can see the players being tired because I'm tired. Whether you're tired or not tired, it's really a character check for your heart. We've all been in situations where we didn't want to do something because we were tired but made ourselves do it."

Moor agreed. "I'm definitely tired. You definitely get tired during games but don't feel it until that final whistle. Then, I realized how tired I was. Guys fatigue over the course of four games in nine days. We have to be deep and the guys on the field have to dig deep."

FCD looked to have tied the game earlier when in the 77th minute, Kenny Cooper put home a rebound off a Juan Toja shot, but the Dallas striker was whistled offside in a very close call. "I don't know (if he was offside)," Hyndman said. "All I can say is that the referee and the linespeople were in a much better position than me. I have to trust their integrity."

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